Black Opal IRIS

For around 10-12 months we have been (not so) patiently waiting for funding to come through for Noah's new wheelchair.  He had his old wheelchair now for eight years, and yesterday his OT told us that the average time for having one chair is around five years, so I'm pretty sure Noah broke the record!

Yesterday was Noah's first appointment at the Seating Clinic to have a fitting in his new chair.  We chose a Quickie IRIS which stands for Intelligent Rotation In Space because of the cool way it tilts. 

 Noah's old wheelchair used to have tilt, but if he went back too far it would get back heavy and wasn't very safe, especially if he had a bit of weight on the back of his chair like a bag.

Noah's new chair rotates the seat frame around his centre point of gravity, which means it's so much safer, a lot smoother and he can lay back a lot further and it's still safe as it won't tip like his old chair. It will be nice being able to lay Noah back so far, so he can get the pressure off his bum for a while, without having to get him out of his chair.


The frame colour I chose is called 'black opal'.  I quite like the sparkle through it.

 

It's so nice seeing Noah sit in it and have so much room. His legs are going outwards too much now because of his hips, so we are going to have to get thigh pads made so his legs don't get pressure marks on the side because they are sitting up against the metal all the time.

Other things we love about it is the new harness, the adjustable foot plates, and the bigger wheels.  It's going to be so much easier to get through things like gravel which was getting very hard with his little wheels on his old chair. By far my favourite thing though is having drum brakes on the handles.  With his old chair we used to have to put the brake on by putting our foot right under the chair which was hard, especially if he was tilted back.  It feels like luxury having brakes on the handles! 

We have to trial it for a week or two and then once we are happy with it and all the adjustments have been made, we can get the back of the seat covered (in Hawthorn stripes of course!).  I have to admit I was a little sad leaving the old one there yesterday after having it for so long, but I think we will get used to the new one. 

We would love to be able to just have the money to be able to buy things like this for Noah when he needs them, rather than having to wait 12 months for them, but we are very grateful to the Variety Club and other organisations which assisted in the funding for the new chair.  For $8000 you would hope that it's going to last for at least 8 years like the old one did!